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Following the fairly successful rollout of Bay Area Bike Share last summer in downtown areas, SFMTA was poised to expand the bike-sharing program to residential neighborhoods earlier this year. However, that expansion has been delayed until the fall “at the soonest” as Bixi, the company that provides the hardware and software for BABS, has filed for bankruptcy. Streetsblog reports:

“Our main technology and software provider is actually for sale,” said [SFMTA bike-share program manager Heath Maddox]. “We should know what becomes of that sale later this month. Hopefully, it’ll be bought by our current operations and maintenance provider [Alta Bicycle Share], and they could just move, without a hitch, and once again fire up production.”

Maddox said after the sale and re-organization is completed, “it takes five to six months to produce the equipment once it’s ordered.”

The immediate future of the program looks pretty grim, as Maddox noted the fall expansion would only happen if “everything went very well.” Of course, the local bike thief business community might bring bike-share to the neighborhoods soon enough.

A few weeks back, the SF Arts Commission dressed up dozens of Market Street Muni stops with these vibrant posters by Lordy Rodriquez, which aims to portray several of the city's choice neighborhoods as their own countries. Via the Arts Commission:

Using the language of cartography, Rodriguez reconfigures factual locations to create fictional territories that illustrate the cumulative identity of a whole neighborhood. Strangerhood features six maps depicting six iconic San Francisco neighborhoods reimagined as independent countries […]

Strangerhood focuses on Chinatown, North Beach, The Mission, The Castro, Haight-Ashbury, and Fisherman’s Wharf, neighborhoods chosen because of their strong cultural identities and tourism economies. Before starting his drawings, Rodriguez visited each neighborhood and photographed storefronts, merchandise, murals, local architecture and color schemes. According to the artist, “How a neighborhood 'dresses' itself, like what kind of stores are there or what kind of merchandise is sold there, reflect the mood and feel of a place.” Rodriquez used the patterns and textures collected during his visits to identify specific areas or “states” within the map. He then layered the text found in the neighborhood’s signage on the map to represent “cities” or “towns”.

We're inherently partial to the Mission poster (full-size it here), which sees Popeye's as the gateway to our dreamy southern peninsula, but Lordy's Chinatown map is the highlight of the set:

Bay Area office drones got to watch as city employees filled up the racks of our long-awaited bike share program, and word on the street says the program's ribbon-cutting is going down right now at the Caltrain Station.

For more info on these fine-looking 44-pound all-purpose monsters, SF Mag has a good look at how BABS works.

A friend noticed a bunch of these flyers hung up around the Financial District this week.

This is certainly one way to get the attention of young professionals who grew up in the 90s and now have disposable income. The statement is also so crass that it goaded me into learning more about the double-threat marketing/musical genius behind it.

So calling on all of my professional experience as a member of the Cyber Police, I successfully backtraced it to one Steve Dukes (via Googling the phone number.) Steve's list off accomplishments don't end with local legends Third Eye Blind. On one of his many personal websites, Steve first and foremost wants to make it absolutely clear that he “was John Cage's last student.” The brilliance continues over at SteveDukes.us, which boasts that he's “THE BEST GUITAR TEACHER, OR YOUR MONEY BACK”, and has a fantastic list of super official out-of-context endorsements and quotes, such as gems like:

Oh god. It's happening. OkCupid is tip-toeing into the realm of IRL - excuse me, “Away from Keyboard”, for you alpha nerds. Now, instead of trying to game your profile, go meet some 6s in-person and try to woo them with your sparkling cocktail conversation.

Just to crank the notch on pretentiousness, they've found a way to collaborate with the international tweed-conglomerate, Banana Republic. At least there will be vodka involved. So if you want to drown your singledom sorrows while meandering through mannequins draped in gingham, you can sign up with a relatively complete OkC profile, $5 (that's what the fee was for yours truly, please let us know in the comments if this price is individually skewed), and a panache for awkward self-deprecation.

Conveniently scheduled before everyone's favorite low-expectation holiday, you can learn about the types of people attending (8 so far!) by the expertly gathered provided attendee data, like how often they meditate (80%, rarely and 20%, never) and the fact that 100% of them spend more money on food than clothes (unfortunate venue then, huh?).

Don't even get us started on that event photograph. Feels like there was a stock image search with the keywords “uncomfortable social gathering” + “diverse twenty-somethings”.

We all know better than to leave a bike unlocked while it's perched atop a Muni bus's bike rack—especially while the bus is creeping down Market Street—but allow Doug's experience serve as a cautionary tale in case anyone has been lulled into a false sense of security:

I was enjoying some after work drinks on Election Night when I decided I had one too many to safely ride my bike home. I put my bike on the front rack of an outbound #71 at Market and 2nd, and took a seat on the front of the bus. I was on the sixth seat back, and had a decent view of my bike. The next stop was Stockton and we pulled up to a red light. As people were boarding the bus I had my head down until the driver called out that someone was taking my bike. By the time I stood up my bike was gone. I ran off the bus and headed back down Market assuming the thief was riding off in that direction but I couldn’t see anything among the lights of Market Street rush hour traffic.

Artcrank is always been a favorite of ours, when 35+ of the Bay Area's best cycling print designers come together to sell off a limited batch of hand-made posters to benefit the SF Bike Coalition. And there's beer!

Unfortunately, this year's sale is scheduled during the heart of Critical Mass's annual Halloween ride—another not-to-be-missed bicycle-themed shitshow. But, fortunately, Artcrank is running until 11pm this year, so you can tail-end it and try to buy up whatever scraps are left behind.

111 Minna Gallery, This Friday from 6-11pm, the event is free, but the posters will set you back $40

The local Juggathological community was abuzz this afternoon following reports of rare exotic Juggalo sightings in downtown San Francisco. Although their natural habitat includes tents, trailer parks, and wood paneled basements, it is not uncommon for the male Juggalo to wander into more populated areas when methamphetamine supplies run low. Following the scent of Faygo and foraging for joints and titties along the way, the Juggalo, or Ninja as he is sometimes known, may be heard rapping about complex scientific topics such as magnetism or crying out in a series of repetitive wooping sounds. This tiny “gathering” (as a grouping of this species is called) was first spotted outside of Zeitgeist by PD Bird, and later documented marching towards City Hall. Note the sharply contrasting facial markings on both ninjas, and the shiny Hachetman medallion on the specimen on the right. Yes, this is truly a glorious day for Bay Area white trash watchers.